Chapter 432 - 419: Sinkhole-Level Mission! Treasure Hunting Unmoored Boat

The Hub Tower in the Azure Star Realm, where Shi Ming was, was merely a few hundred meters tall.

In contrast, the Hub Tower of the Ten Thousand Vaults Star Realm—an Advanced Civilization Star Realm within the Thirty-Seventh Cosmic Country—had a body that stretched on endlessly, as if forged from light itself.

The difference between the two was like that of an ant before a giant.

This starkly illustrated the disparity between civilizations.

At that moment, in a section of the Ten Thousand Vaults Hub Tower, the very air seemed to have frozen. Three figures stood before a console that had no Shadow assigned to it—one in front, and two behind.

"Useless!"

"To think you’d dare act on your own!"

"Making a quick buck... You might have the luck to earn it, but do you think you’ll live to spend it?"

SMACK!

Three slaps landed, one after another, on the face of a silver-haired woman.

The silver-haired woman and the blond man, both clad in standard-issue armor, stood trembling before an imposing Six-armed man. Their faces were pale, and they didn’t dare show the slightest hint of discontent.

A short while earlier, they had undergone the most rigorous of searches.

A search that was rigorous down to the cellular level.

It was the only reason they had narrowly escaped with their lives.

The silver-haired woman was named Annie.

The blond man was named Kettel.

Some ten-odd days ago, Annie had come across file MH8890 in the internal system, which detailed a massive catastrophe in the Unfastened Boat Star Realm. Her keen instincts sensed an opportunity to make a quick buck, so she invited Kettel to form a team. They immediately pulled the anchor coordinates for the Unmoored Boat and used the Dark Cosmos to travel there in search of lost treasure.

With a clear spatial anchor, a ship could travel five to ten times faster than it could while exploring uncharted territory.

Unfortunately, they didn’t find any treasure.

Instead, all they found was a world of trouble.

If their superior hadn’t vouched for them, they both would have been killed.

The reason was this: shortly after the pair arrived at the Unmoored Boat, a true member of the Ten Thousand Vaults Star Realm’s upper echelon—a powerful Nirvana Powerhouse known as the "Tower King"—had used some unknown means to witness the collapse of a fragmented wormhole in the Unfastened Boat Star Realm. He sensed the emergence of an extraordinary treasure and personally traveled to the wormhole’s coordinates to find it, only to come up empty-handed.

And there, he ran right into the duo who were out to make a quick buck.

And just like that.

Wrong place, wrong time.

The two of them seamlessly became the prime suspects.

If not for their superior—the Six-armed man—who still had some clout and was willing to vouch for them, the great personage would have likely killed them on the spot in a fit of rage. All their possessions would have been confiscated, and even their loved ones would have been implicated!

"Supervisor, we swear, we didn’t see any kind of token!"

the silver-haired woman, Annie, pleaded.

Tears welled in her silver eyes, her sense of grievance palpable. Her former arrogance had vanished completely. Beside her, the blond warrior—who possessed four types of Holy Hall Origin—didn’t even dare to breathe. In the eyes of their colleagues, they were the darlings of heaven. But in the eyes of a truly great figure, they were less than nothing.

"Hmph! What I believe doesn’t matter. What matters is that you make the Tower King believe you!"

The Tower King was one of the most powerful Nirvana Powerhouses in the advanced civilization of Ten Thousand Vaults. Even within the entire Thirty-Seventh Cosmic Country, he ranked among the top 100, if not higher. If you offended him, there was no place to hide unless you fled the Thirty-Seventh Cosmic Country entirely.

"From now on, you’re to stay obediently in the Hub Tower."

"I’ll handle the rest."

The Six-armed man glanced at his two disappointing subordinates, and his anger surged. Fortunately, the Tower King had acted immediately upon his arrival. He had used a supreme treasure to secretly seal off the entire Unmoored Boat. At the same time, he issued a Wanted Order, using adventurers from the surrounding Star Domains to conduct a sweeping search of the Unmoored Boat, including the Dark Cosmos and even deeper space.

’I hope he gets what he wants.’

’If he can’t,’

’I’m afraid all the adventurers who entered the Unmoored Boat looking for treasure during this period will die, including these two idiots.’

The Six-armed man knew the Tower King’s style all too well and sighed internally. ’I wonder what kind of treasure could make him willing to go to such lengths.’

’But this wasn’t something he could get involved in.’

He looked at the bounty quest he had personally posted yesterday across the few Star Domains near the Unmoored Boat. The reward—100 Cosmic Crystals and a job opportunity at the Hub Tower—was trivial to people like him. But for the inhabitants of an Intermediate Civilization Star Realm, it was an irresistible lure, something worth risking one’s life for.

’The only problem was the deadly trap hidden within.’

’The adventurers wanted treasure,’

’but the Tower King needed cannon fodder.’

’It was impossible to have both. Only one side’s desire could be satisfied.’

...

...

...

Before Shi Ming, a massive panel displayed the most popular quest, issued just yesterday...

[Quest: Treasure Hunting Unmoored Boat!]

[Reward: ...]

Shi Ming clicked his tongue.

’1,000,000 Deep Blue Coins, which is 100 Cosmic Crystals. Cosmic Crystals are a high-level currency, so the reward is respectable enough. A little tempting, even.’

’But an internship at the Hub Tower? What the hell is that about?’

"An internship where you slave away like an animal is supposed to be a reward?"

He couldn’t resist making the sarcastic comment.

’It was like giving a bottle of water to a capitalist dying of thirst in the desert, only for him to ’reward’ you with a 9-to-9, six-days-a-week job and call it a ’blessing’.’

The words were barely out of his mouth when more than half the people in the mission hall turned to stare at him. He’d made the comment in the common tongue of Azure Star, just to blend in, but he never expected such a reaction.

"Ahem. That’s some way to talk, kid."

"That’s an internship at the Ten Thousand Vaults Hub Tower, in an Advanced Civilization! For ordinary Awakened like us from an Intermediate Civilization, getting a chance like that means you’ve hit the jackpot. It’s a case of one person’s success lifting everyone around them. The entire Azure Star would take pride in you."